Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest

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"Henry, do not talk in that way," cried Charles. "Rather let us bend all
our energies to overcoming the evil, than spend any time in useless
lamentations. I cannot even yet give in to a belief in the existence of
such a being as you say visited Flora."

"But the evidences."

"Look you here, Henry: until I am convinced that some things have
happened which it is totally impossible could happen by any human means
whatever, I will not ascribe them to supernatural influence."

"But what human means, Charles, could produce what I have now narrated
to you?"

"I do not know, just at present, but I will give the subject the most
attentive consideration. Will you accommodate me here for a time?"

"You know you are as welcome here as if the house were your own, and all
that it contains."

"I believe so, most truly. You have no objection, I presume, to my
conversing with Flora upon this strange subject?"

"Certainly not. Of course you will be careful to say nothing which can
add to her fears."

"I shall be most guarded, believe me. You say that your brother George,
Mr. Chillingworth, yourself, and this Mr. Marchdale, have all been
cognisant of the circumstances."

"Yes--yes."

"Then with the whole of them you permit me to hold free communication
upon the subject?"

"Most certainly."

"I will do so then. Keep up good heart, Henry, and this affair, which
looks so full of terror at first sight, may yet be divested of some of
its hideous aspect."

"I am rejoiced, if anything can rejoice me now," said Henry, "to see you
view the subject with so much philosophy."

"Why," said Charles, "you made a remark of your own, which enabled me,
viewing the matter in its very worst and most hideous aspect, to gather
hope."

"What was that?"

"You said, properly and naturally enough, that if ever we felt that
there was such a weight of evidence in favour of a belief in the
existence of vampyres that we are compelled to succumb to it, we might
as well receive all the popular feelings and superstitions concerning
them likewise."

"I did. Where is the mind to pause, when once we open it to the
reception of such things?"

"Well, then, if that be the case, we will watch this vampyre and catch
it."

"Catch it?"

"Yes; surely it can be caught; as I understand, this species of being is
not like an apparition, that may be composed of thin air, and utterly
impalpable to the human touch, but it consists of a revivified corpse."

"Yes, yes."

"Then it is tangible and destructible. By Heaven! if ever I catch a
glimpse of any such thing, it shall drag me to its home, be that where
it may, or I will make it prisoner."

"Oh, Charles! you know not the feeling of horror that will come across
you when you do. You have no idea of how the warm blood will seem to
curdle in your veins, and how you will be paralysed in every limb."

"Did you feel so?"

"I did."

"I will endeavour to make head against such feelings. The love of Flora
shall enable me to vanquish them. Think you it will come again
to-morrow?"

[Illustration]

"I can have no thought the one way or the other."

"It may. We must arrange among us all, Henry, some plan of watching
which, without completely prostrating our health and strength, will
always provide that one shall be up all night and on the alert."

"It must be done."

"Flora ought to sleep with the consciousness now that she has ever at
hand some intrepid and well-armed protector, who is not only himself
prepared to defend her, but who can in a moment give an alarm to us all,
in case of necessity requiring it."

"It would be a dreadful capture to make to seize a vampyre," said Henry.

"Not at all; it would be a very desirable one. Being a corpse
revivified, it is capable of complete destruction, so as to render it no
longer a scourge to any one."

"Charles, Charles, are you jesting with me, or do you really give any
credence to the story?"

"My dear friend, I always make it a rule to take things at their worst,
and then I cannot be disappointed. I am content to reason upon this
matter as if the fact of the existence of a vampyre were thoroughly
established, and then to think upon what is best to be done about it."

"You are right."

"If it should turn out then that there is an error in the fact, well and
good--we are all the better off; but if otherwise, we are prepared, and
armed at all points."

"Let it be so, then. It strikes me, Charles, that you will be the
coolest and the calmest among us all on this emergency; but the hour now
waxes late, I will get them to prepare a chamber for you, and at least
to-night, after what has occurred already, I should think we can be
under no apprehension."

"Probably not. But, Henry, if you would allow me to sleep in that room
where the portrait hangs of him whom you suppose to be the vampyre, I
should prefer it."

"Prefer it!"

"Yes; I am not one who courts danger for danger's sake, but I would
rather occupy that room, to see if the vampyre, who perhaps has a
partiality for it, will pay me a visit."

"As you please, Charles. You can have the apartment. It is in the same
state as when occupied by Flora. Nothing has been, I believe, removed
from it."

"You will let me, then, while I remain here, call it my room?"

"Assuredly."

This arrangement was accordingly made to the surprise of all the
household, not one of whom would, indeed, have slept, or attempted to
sleep there for any amount of reward. But Charles Holland had his own
reasons for preferring that chamber, and he was conducted to it in the
course of half an hour by Henry, who looked around it with a shudder, as
he bade his young friend good night.

CHAPTER XII.

CHARLES HOLLAND'S SAD FEELINGS.--THE PORTRAIT.--THE OCCURRENCE OF THE
NIGHT AT THE HALL.

[Illustration]

Charles Holland wished to be alone, if ever any human being had wished
fervently to be so. His thoughts were most fearfully oppressive.

The communication that had been made to him by Henry Bannerworth, had
about it too many strange, confirmatory circumstances to enable him to
treat it, in his own mind, with the disrespect that some mere freak of a
distracted and weak imagination would, most probably, have received from
him.

He had found Flora in a state of excitement which could arise only from
some such terrible cause as had been mentioned by her brother, and then
he was, from an occurrence which certainly never could have entered into
his calculations, asked to forego the bright dream of happiness which he
had held so long and so rapturously to his heart.

How truly he found that the course of true love ran not smooth; and yet
how little would any one have suspected that from such a cause as that
which now oppressed his mind, any obstruction would arise.

Flora might have been fickle and false; he might have seen some other
fairer face, which might have enchained his fancy, and woven for him a
new heart's chain; death might have stepped between him and the
realization of his fondest hopes; loss of fortune might have made the
love cruel which would have yoked to its distresses a young and
beautiful girl, reared in the lap of luxury, and who was not, even by
those who loved her, suffered to feel, even in later years, any of the
pinching necessities of the family.

All these things were possible--some of them were probable; and yet none
of them had occurred. She loved him still; and he, although he had
looked on many a fair face, and basked in the sunny smiles of beauty,
had never for a moment forgotten her faith, or lost his devotion to his
own dear English girl.

Fortune he had enough for both; death had not even threatened to rob him
of the prize of such a noble and faithful heart which he had won. But a
horrible superstition had arisen, which seemed to place at once an
impassable abyss between them, and to say to him, in a voice of
thundering denunciation,--

"Charles Holland, will you have a vampyre for your bride?"

The thought was terrific. He paced the gloomy chamber to and fro with
rapid strides, until the idea came across his mind that by so doing he
might not only be proclaiming to his kind entertainers how much he was
mentally distracted, but he likewise might be seriously distracting
them.

The moment this occurred to him he sat down, and was profoundly still
for some time. He then glanced at the light which had been given to him,
and he found himself almost unconsciously engaged in a mental
calculation as to how long it would last him in the night.

Half ashamed, then, of such terrors, as such a consideration would seem
to indicate, he was on the point of hastily extinguishing it, when he
happened to cast his eyes on the now mysterious and highly interesting
portrait in the panel.

The picture, as a picture, was well done, whether it was a correct
likeness or not of the party whom it represented. It was one of those
kind of portraits that seem so life-like, that, as you look at them,
they seem to return your gaze fully, and even to follow you with their
eyes from place to place.

By candle-light such an effect is more likely to become striking and
remarkable than by daylight; and now, as Charles Holland shaded his own
eyes from the light, so as to cast its full radiance upon the portrait,
he felt wonderfully interested in its life-like appearance.

"Here is true skill," he said; "such as I have not before seen. How
strangely this likeness of a man whom I never saw seems to gaze upon
me."

Unconsciously, too, he aided the effect, which he justly enough called
life-like, by a slight movement of the candle, such as any one not
blessed with nerves of iron would be sure to make, and such a movement
made the face look as if it was inspired with vitality.

Charles remained looking at the portrait for a considerable period of
time. He found a kind of fascination in it which prevented him from
drawing his eyes away from it. It was not fear which induced him to
continue gazing on it, but the circumstance that it was a likeness of
the man who, after death, was supposed to have borrowed so new and so
hideous an existence, combined with its artistic merits, chained him to
the spot.

"I shall now," he said, "know that face again, let me see it where I
may, or under what circumstances I may. Each feature is now indelibly
fixed upon my memory--I never can mistake it."

He turned aside as he uttered these words, and as he did so his eyes
fell upon a part of the ornamental frame which composed the edge of the
panel, and which seemed to him to be of a different colour from the
surrounding portion.

Curiosity and increased interest prompted him at once to make a closer
inquiry into the matter; and, by a careful and diligent scrutiny, he was
almost induced to come to the positive opinion, that it no very distant
period in time past, the portrait had been removed from the place it
occupied.

When once this idea, even vague and indistinct as it was, in consequence
of the slight grounds he formed it on, had got possession of his mind,
he felt most anxious to prove its verification or its fallacy.

He held the candle in a variety of situations, so that its light fell in
different ways on the picture; and the more he examined it, the more he
felt convinced that it must have been moved lately.

It would appear as if, in its removal, a piece of the old oaken carved
framework of the panel had been accidentally broken off, which caused
the new look of the fracture, and that this accident, from the nature of
the broken bit of framing, could have occurred in any other way than
from an actual or attempted removal of the picture, he felt was
extremely unlikely.

He set down the candle on a chair near at hand, and tried if the panel
was fast in its place. Upon the very first touch, he felt convinced it
was not so, and that it easily moved. How to get it out, though,
presented a difficulty, and to get it out was tempting.

"Who knows," he said to himself, "what may be behind it? This is an old
baronial sort of hall, and the greater portion of it was, no doubt,
built at a time when the construction of such places as hidden chambers
and intricate staircases were, in all buildings of importance,
considered a disiderata."

That he should make some discovery behind the portrait, now became an
idea that possessed him strongly, although he certainly had no definite
grounds for really supposing that he should do so.

Perhaps the wish was more father to the thought than he, in the partial
state of excitement he was in, really imagined; but so it was. He felt
convinced that he should not be satisfied until he had removed that
panel from the wall, and seen what was immediately behind it.

After the panel containing the picture had been placed where it was, it
appeared that pieces of moulding had been inserted all around, which had
had the effect of keeping it in its place, and it was a fracture of one
of these pieces which had first called Charles Holland's attention to
the probability of the picture having been removed. That he should have
to get two, at least, of the pieces of moulding away, before he could
hope to remove the picture, was to him quite apparent, and he was
considering how he should accomplish such a result, when he was suddenly
startled by a knock at his chamber door.

Until that sudden demand for admission at his door came, he scarcely
knew to what a nervous state he had worked himself up. It was an odd
sort of tap--one only--a single tap, as if some one demanded admittance,
and wished to awaken his attention with the least possible chance of
disturbing any one else.

"Come in," said Charles, for he knew he had not fastened his door; "come
in."

There was no reply, but after a moment's pause, the same sort of low tap
came again.

Again he cried "come in," but, whoever it was, seemed determined that
the door should be opened for him, and no movement was made from the
outside. A third time the tap came, and Charles was very close to the
door when he heard it, for with a noiseless step he had approached it
intending to open it. The instant this third mysterious demand for
admission came, he did open it wide. There was no one there! In an
instant he crossed the threshold into the corridor, which ran right and
left. A window at one end of it now sent in the moon's rays, so that it
was tolerably light, but he could see no one. Indeed, to look for any
one, he felt sure was needless, for he had opened his chamber-door
almost simultaneously with the last knock for admission.

"It is strange," he said, as he lingered on the threshold of his room
door for some moments; "my imagination could not so completely deceive
me. There was most certainly a demand for admission."

Slowly, then, he returned to his room again, and closed the door behind
him.

"One thing is evident," he said, "that if I am in this apartment to be
subjected to these annoyances, I shall get no rest, which will soon
exhaust me."

This thought was a very provoking one, and the more he thought that he
should ultimately find a necessity for giving up that chamber he had
himself asked as a special favour to be allowed to occupy, the more
vexed he became to think what construction might be put upon his conduct
for so doing.

"They will all fancy me a coward," he thought, "and that I dare not
sleep here. They may not, of course, say so, but they will think that my
appearing so bold was one of those acts of bravado which I have not
courage to carry fairly out."

Taking this view of the matter was just the way to enlist a young man's
pride in staying, under all circumstances, where he was, and, with a
slight accession of colour, which, even although he was alone, would
visit his cheeks, Charles Holland said aloud,--

"I will remain the occupant of this room come what may, happen what may.
No terrors, real or unsubstantial, shall drive me from it: I will brave
them all, and remain here to brave them."

Tap came the knock at the door again, and now, with more an air of
vexation than fear, Charles turned again towards it, and listened. Tap
in another minute again succeeded, and much annoyed, he walked close to
the door, and laid his hand upon the lock, ready to open it at the
precise moment of another demand for admission being made.

He had not to wait long. In about half a minute it came again, and,
simultaneously with the sound, the door flew open. There was no one to
be seen; but, as he opened the door, he heard a strange sound in the
corridor--a sound which scarcely could be called a groan, and scarcely a
sigh, but seemed a compound of both, having the agony of the one
combined with the sadness of the other. From what direction it came he
could not at the moment decide, but he called out,--

"Who's there? who's there?"

The echo of his own voice alone answered him for a few moments, and then
he heard a door open, and a voice, which he knew to be Henry's, cried,--

"What is it? who speaks?"

"Henry," said Charles.

"Yes--yes--yes."

"I fear I have disturbed you."

"You have been disturbed yourself, or you would not have done so. I
shall be with you in a moment."

Henry closed his door before Charles Holland could tell him not to come
to him, as he intended to do, for he felt ashamed to have, in a manner
of speaking, summoned assistance for so trifling a cause of alarm as
that to which he had been subjected. However, he could not go to Henry's
chamber to forbid him from coming to his, and, more vexed than before,
he retired to his room again to await his coming.

He left the door open now, so that Henry Bannerworth, when he had got on
some articles of dress, walked in at once, saying,--

"What has happened, Charles?"

"A mere trifle, Henry, concerning which I am ashamed you should have
been at all disturbed."

"Never mind that, I was wakeful."

"I heard a door open, which kept me listening, but I could not decide
which door it was till I heard your voice in the corridor."

"Well, it was this door; and I opened it twice in consequence of the
repeated taps for admission that came to it; some one has been knocking
at it, and, when I go to it, lo! I can see nobody."

"Indeed!"

[Illustration]

"Such is the case."

"You surprise me."

"I am very sorry to have disturbed you, because, upon such a ground, I
do not feel that I ought to have done so; and, when I called out in the
corridor, I assure you it was with no such intention."

"Do not regret it for a moment," said Henry; "you were quite justified
in making an alarm on such an occasion."

"It's strange enough, but still it may arise from some accidental cause;
admitting, if we did but know it, of some ready enough explanation."

"It may, certainly, but, after what has happened already, we may well
suppose a mysterious connexion between any unusual sight or sound, and
the fearful ones we have already seen."

"Certainly we may."

"How earnestly that strange portrait seems to look upon us, Charles."

"It does, and I have been examining it carefully. It seems to have been
removed lately."

"Removed!"

"Yes, I think, as far as I can judge, that it has been taken from its
frame; I mean, that the panel on which it is painted has been taken
out."

"Indeed!"

"If you touch it you will find it loose, and, upon a close examination,
you will perceive that a piece of the moulding which holds it in its
place has been chipped off, which is done in such a place that I think
it could only have arisen during the removal of the picture."

"You must be mistaken."

"I cannot, of course, take upon myself, Henry, to say precisely such is
the case," said Charles.

"But there is no one here to do so."

"That I cannot say. Will you permit me and assist me to remove it? I
have a great curiosity to know what is behind it."

"If you have, I certainly will do so. We thought of taking it away
altogether, but when Flora left this room the idea was given up as
useless. Remain here a few moments, and I will endeavour to find
something which shall assist us in its removal."

Henry left the mysterious chamber in order to search in his own for some
means of removing the frame-work of the picture, so that the panel would
slip easily out, and while he was gone, Charles Holland continued gazing
upon it with greater interest, if possible, than before.

In a few minutes Henry returned, and although what he had succeeded in
finding were very inefficient implements for the purpose, yet with this
aid the two young men set about the task.

It is said, and said truly enough, that "where there is a will there is
a way," and although the young men had no tools at all adapted for the
purpose, they did succeed in removing the moulding from the sides of the
panel, and then by a little tapping at one end of it, and using a knife
at a lever at the other end of the panel, they got it fairly out.

Disappointment was all they got for their pains. On the other side there
was nothing but a rough wooden wall, against which the finer and more
nicely finished oak panelling of the chamber rested.

"There is no mystery here," said Henry.

"None whatever," said Charles, as he tapped the wall with his knuckles,
and found it all hard and sound. "We are foiled."

"We are indeed."

"I had a strange presentiment, now," added Charles, "that we should make
some discovery that would repay us for our trouble. It appears, however,
that such is not to be the case; for you see nothing presents itself to
us but the most ordinary appearances."

"I perceive as much; and the panel itself, although of more than
ordinary thickness, is, after all, but a bit of planed oak, and
apparently fashioned for no other object than to paint the portrait on."

"True. Shall we replace it?"

Charles reluctantly assented, and the picture was replaced in its
original position. We say Charles reluctantly assented, because,
although he had now had ocular demonstration that there was really
nothing behind the panel but the ordinary woodwork which might have been
expected from the construction of the old house, yet he could not, even
with such a fact staring him in the face, get rid entirely of the
feeling that had come across him, to the effect that the picture had
some mystery or another.

"You are not yet satisfied," said Henry, as he observed the doubtful
look of Charles Holland's face.

"My dear friend," said Charles, "I will not deceive you. I am much
disappointed that we have made no discovery behind that picture."

"Heaven knows we have mysteries enough in our family," said Henry.

Even as he spoke they were both startled by a strange clattering noise
at the window, which was accompanied by a shrill, odd kind of shriek,
which sounded fearful and preternatural on the night air.

"What is that?" said Charles.

"God only knows," said Henry.

The two young men naturally turned their earnest gaze in the direction
of the window, which we have before remarked was one unprovided with
shutters, and there, to their intense surprise, they saw, slowly rising
up from the lower part of it, what appeared to be a human form. Henry
would have dashed forward, but Charles restrained him, and drawing
quickly from its case a large holster pistol, he levelled it carefully
at the figure, saying in a whisper,--

"Henry, if I don't hit it, I will consent to forfeit my head."

He pulled the trigger--a loud report followed--the room was filled with
smoke, and then all was still. A circumstance, however, had occurred, as
a consequence of the concussion of air produced by the discharge of the
pistol, which neither of the young men had for the moment calculated
upon, and that was the putting out of the only light they there had.

In spite of this circumstance, Charles, the moment he had discharged the
pistol, dropped it and sprung forward to the window. But here he was
perplexed, for he could not find the old fashioned, intricate fastening
which held it shut, and he had to call to Henry,--

"Henry! For God's sake open the window for me, Henry! The fastening of
the window is known to you, but not to me. Open it for me."

Thus called upon, Henry sprung forward, and by this time the report of
the pistol had effectually alarmed the whole household. The flashing of
lights from the corridor came into the room, and in another minute, just
as Henry succeeded in getting the window wide open, and Charles Holland
had made his way on to the balcony, both George Bannerworth and Mr.
Marchdale entered the chamber, eager to know what had occurred. To their
eager questions Henry replied,--

"Ask me not now;" and then calling to Charles, he said,--"Remain where
you are, Charles, while I run down to the garden immediately beneath the
balcony."

"Yes--yes," said Charles.

Henry made prodigious haste, and was in the garden immediately below the
bay window in a wonderfully short space of time. He spoke to Charles,
saying,--

"Will you now descend? I can see nothing here; but we will both make a
search."

George and Mr. Marchdale were both now in the balcony, and they would
have descended likewise, but Henry said,--

"Do not all leave the house. God only knows, now, situated as we are,
what might happen."